The Sound of Us Read Free

with him. My bartender only swings one way, and it’s not toward anyone with tits. He says over his shoulder, “You’re turning into such a heathen, boss.”
    “Ugh, I know.” I mock-roll my eyes. “Now all I need is to go clubbing and bring home a guy with tattoos and a bullring.”
    “Well...” Maggie bites her bottom lip thoughtfully, “if you’re not doing anything tonight, a few college guys playing a Quidditch match down at Pack Square Park. They’re probably still there. Wanna go? Most of them don’t have bull rings, but I totes think you can find a tatted Malfoy.”
    “Tempting. Do I have to run around with a broom between my legs?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “Then that’s a deal-breaker.”
    “Muggles,” she scoffs, sliding her phone into her back pocket, and twists her long dreads up into a bun behind her head. She fans the back of her neck with a drink menu. “Just means I’ll have all the Nevilles to myself. Dear
fuck,
it’s hot. Are you ever going to get the air conditioning fixed?”
    I shrug apologetically. “Eventually?”
    “Eventually,
eventually
. Well,
eventually
you’ll regret not coming with me to the Quidditch match.”
    Normally, I would cave and go with her, just to be a good wing-woman, but I’m just not feeling it tonight. “Eventually, I
might.
” Before she can rebuke, I ask my bartender, “You closing tonight?”
    He gives me a salute and quirks a teasing eyebrow to the hottie in the corner. “I’ll take my time,” he replies coyly, more to the patron than to me.
    Maggie and I slide off our stools together. She holds the door open for me as we exit the bar and split our separate ways. “I’ll make it up to you?” I offer.
    “We both know that’s a lie!” She calls over her shoulder, waving goodbye with her middle finger.

Chapter Two
    What I don’t tell Maggie—and what she doesn’t know, and probably never will—is that while she’s pretending to fly around with a broom between her legs, I’m
not
going home to pack for vacation tomorrow. Not yet, anyway.
    I find the number I’m looking for in the backlog of my phone, and call it as I get into the station wagon. The phone rings three times before a soft, liquid voice answers, “Yeah, this is Caspian, how can I help you?”
    “Hi, Cas,” I squeak.
    “Junie?” He sounds surprised. “Hi baby, is everything all right?”
    “Can I come over for a while?” I ask, trying to not sound too hopeful, glancing at the clock on my dashboard. It blinks 2:09 AM in ominous green numbers.
    “Yeah, come on over. I just got in.”
    Ten minutes later, I park behind the barn at the rear of his house, and sneak through the bushes to the side of the yard so the security cameras won’t see me. His dad is a pilot, so he travels a lot, and his mom is one of those investment bankers, so she takes frequent trips to Bora Bora with her girlfriends and leaves the house to Caspian. It’d be lonely, I think, to be in a huge house like this with nothing but the best security system money can buy, but he says he doesn’t mind. During the few times I’ve been over to his house, he’s had either the radio or TV on. I think he’s scared of silence, and when I retrieve the key from under the back porch doormat and let myself into the kitchen, silence sounds a hell of a lot better than what’s playing on the radio. I cringe.
    Roman Holiday.
    “Don’t tell me you’re listening to that, too,” I groan, dumping my purse down on the inlet counter.
    He looks up from a bowl of leftover Chinese, and outstretches a half-eaten egg roll to me between his chopsticks. “Food?”
    “Not really hungry,” I reply, tugging my hair out of its ponytail.
    His perfectly tweezed eyebrows shoot up in surprise, as if he just notices the color. “What did you do to your hair?”
    “Do you like it?” I ask.
    Cas’s eyes are this crazy sort of cornflower blue that remind me of a summer sky, accented by a strong jaw and a thick head of straw-colored